'I know what we said, Jorja, but this morning the sea air is blowing through my mind and it tells me that a man and a girl can't live in the same house and be unaware of each other. I am only human and it's better that we agree to a normal marriage rather than wait for something to happen which you will find—disagreeable.'
Jorja gave him a questioning look, and he laughed briefly to himself. 'Ah, you can't be so innocent—or can you?'
She realised what he meant and her thoughts sped to the way he had kissed her on the terrace of their suite, her body pressed close to the warm force of him so she was made aware of his sensual impulses. He meant her to know that there was a part of him which he couldn't ignore, and she, artless innocent that she was, had supposed that they could discuss it rationally over a dining-table and plan to live as if they were the inmates of a cloister.
The sea wind tossed her hair and moulded the silk shirt against the slim curves of her figure; she felt Renzo's eyes upon the shape of her, his dark lashes intensifying the sensuality of the look he was giving her.
Half-realised images, and long-hidden thoughts filled Jorja's mind in that moment. What was it like, she wondered, to lay naked and possessed in the arms of a man? Did a girl feel the same desperate pleasure and passion as the lover?
Quickly she turned away her gaze unless Renzo read her thoughts. He had experienced what she could only imagine. He was a man and he couldn't know the terrors of a girl who had lived her kind of life. She had never related to the passions of any man, least of all a man who had come into her life as her future brother-in-law. There had been no thought in her head that Renzo Talmonte would ever do more than kiss her hand, as he had kissed it the day they had been introduced by Angelica.
Oh yes, there were terrors ... all mixed up with wanting to be as different from Angelica as she could get. But when Renzo took her into his arms, she seemed to lose her own identity. When he touched her, he seemed to be moulding her into the shape of Angelica.
'Look at me!'
She slowly raised her face, knowing it to be naked with uncertainty.
'You've gone quite pale,' he mused. 'I shall ask you again what I asked you before, do you find the thought of my lovemaking so repellent?'
'I—don't know.'
'You must know.' His voice had hardened. 'You must feel something when I touch you.'
'Yes.' The word broke from her. 'I can't stop thinking that it's Angelica you want to—hold in your arms. I don't like to think of being used as a substitute for her!'
'Ah, we are back to that again.' He dropped his ebony stick and took hold of Jorja, giving her a shake when she tried to resist him. 'Forget your sister once and for all. Let us both forget her very existence—so!'
The warm exhalation of his breath was against Jorja's face, and then he was kissing her slowly, his lips stroking sensuously over hers. 'Don't do this to me,' she wanted to plead. 'Don't make me like what you're doing to me... .'
It was fantastic, unreal, perilous to be locked together like this on a public pathway, but nothing could stop her senses from enjoying this close contact with his vibrant body. His firm muscle and bone had an appeal she couldn't seem to fight, and even as she told herself that this was the man who had threatened her family and swept aside all protest in order to get even with Angelica, her arms climbed about the column of his neck and her lips were soft and willing beneath his.
When he felt her response he pulled her closer than ever, making her feel the throb of sinew and nerve. A deep and penetrating thrill swept Jorja and she clung to him and stopped caring about anything except the touch of his mouth, the feel of his hands, the quickening of desire that was like nothing she had ever felt before. It overrode all other feelings ... it was excitement and temptation, her awakening to her own body.
She wanted to be his! Nothing else mattered ... she cast it all aside.
CHAPTER FIVE
Renzo hung the Do Not Disturb notice on the door of their suite, then he came into the bedroom and regarded Jorja with a slightly quizzical smile.
She could feel her heart thumping with excitement ... he and her own feelings made her vulnerable and uncertain of what to do next. She could only stand there and wait for him to make all the moves.
'Do you want to close the curtains?' he asked, for the room was filled with daylight and they were both intensely aware that their instincts were of the night; of the velvety shadows that were more alluring than the bold eye of the sun.
'Yes—all right.' Jorja turned and pulled the cord which swept the curtains together. Right away the room was dim and intimate, and she felt a tremulous, deep-down stirring of her senses, as if the nerves in her body had been tuned in to a single, overwhelming centre of interest.
'That's better, isn't it?' Renzo began to approach her, looming tall and full of intent as he drew near to her. She could see his eyes glinting in the dimness, and she stood before him in helpless surrender to whatever he desired.
She didn't call it love. What she felt was the need and the yearning which she had repressed in order to run the rectory. She had been a pair of hands that cooked and cleaned; a pair Of legs that ran errands ... the in-between part of her had made no demands on the self-effacing person she had been.
Renzo stroked her hair and his fingers pushed their way through the soft mane until they were buried. 'You smell like wheat,' he told her. 'When the sun is hot on the sheaves and they yield to the heat.'
He bent his head and his lips touched her eyelids. He looked into her eyes as he slowly, almost teasingly released each button of her shirt until the silk released her and exposed her bare white shoulders and her breasts in crescents of white lace. He uncovered her breasts, silky skinned and tilting rosy-pink beneath the brush of his mouth.
Jorja quivered deep inside at the provoking touch of his lips on parts of her which had been so secret until now; so concealed beneath high-necked, spinsterish blouses. Only the mirror in the bathroom had been witness to her body, now a man's eyes, smoky-grey, the lids heavy with sensual pleasure, roamed freely over her shape, her skin, as he unzipped and drew off her breeches. From slender thighs her legs tapered to fine-boned ankles and slim feet with straight toes.
And Renzo's hands travelled from her neck downwards, fondling, discovering, with fingertips that seemed to send a liquid fire racing through her veins.
'I feel such a want of you,' he said, and with his desirous eyes holding hers he unbuttoned his own shirt, unzipped his own trousers and stood over her, letting the desire build taut and hungry between them. When his strong limbs moulded themselves to hers, Jorja felt the erotic heat and energy of him, the power and passion. His kisses were deep and sensuous, following the delicately sloping line from her nape to her shoulder, a trail of sensation down into her shadowed navel. Her hands of themselves were deep in his dark hair, and the most exquisite agitation had hold of her body, incessant, tremulous thrills arising from portions of her which his intimate lips seemed to know as she had never known them.
Even as her cheeks burned scarlet, her body allowed him to do as he pleased, palpitating in the throes of a pleasure she hadn't dreamed of. Exciting and secret nerves were awakened by his touch so that the entire stem of her body was glowing and deeply stirred. There was something more than sensuality, something so aching and tender and needed that Jorja raised her head from the pillow and kissed his face with soft, gasping, wanting lips.
'Carita!' His warm and seeking lips had become more urgent and as their lips fused Jorja felt him between the slender arcs of her legs, caressing, urging, leaving and advancing. Her hands pressed against the muscles of his back, firm as iron overlaid by hot smooth skin. She laid her face against the firm column of his neck ... a pulsebeat and then a flash of pain radiated to all parts of her body, from the very centre of her to the tips of her fingers and toes. Her fingers clenched, her nails dug into him, and then there was nothing but the tyranny of passion, the clamour of a desire that was overriding, overlapping, her slim
body his entire captive.
The bright, hot glow of it blinded her eyes, stilled her mind, swept away everyone but Renzo ... her lover ... hers!
His mouth buried Italian words in her neck, his hands caressed and fondled the curve of her shoulders, the softer curve of her breasts, his lips hot and moist against their peaks. His hands slid downwards and held her by the hips to the vibrant motion, the strong pulsations, the delicious churning of their two selves locked into a combat of the senses.
Jorja tossed her head from side to side. Oh God, she loved the warm, powerful, taking and giving body that covered hers. She wanted to die like this ... or live in the endless wonder of it. She wanted nothing and nobody but Renzo, who was such heaven to hold, there at the innermost core of her.
'You are beautiful,' he whispered. 'So intensely rapturous.'
She clung and gave of herself without restraint, for unleashed was all the hidden need and all the power to feel which her rectory life had suppressed. She was someone she had never known about, and yet she was still herself, exulting in the finding of her own body and what it could feel and achieve in the arms of this man ... Oh God, his shoulders, his flanks, his heavenly presence deep inside her. She heard and felt the little sounds coming from her throat and her eyes shone with rapture and tears.
'Renzo!' She arched to the glorious feel of him, her mind spinning with stars. 'Oh—Renzo!'
They lay at last in a tangle of legs and arms, her breasts rising and falling against the dark, salty hair of his chest. She felt a hoyden and an angel all in one. She wanted to laugh and cry. She had discovered herself, but in doing so had she fallen desperately in love with her lover?
Or was she being naive? Was she unable to accept that she could enjoy and participate in the lovemaking without being in love with Renzo?
She studied him from beneath the languorous curve of her lashes, taking in the strong bone-structure, the bold outline of his mouth, the pulse that beat visibly in his throat. Unclad, stripped of his well-made, modern suits, he looked entirely Roman. His skin had a natural depth of colour, for the centuries of sunlight were the natural birthright of Latin men. His skin had a sheen of moisture which intensified its attraction, and his black hair was tousled, strangely endearing in the way it spiked his forehead.
Her stomach contracted to a deep, sweet, lingering ache. He had made a woman of her, dragged her finally and forever out of the big old kitchen at Duncton, out from the oven and the apron, and bared her body and soul in his arms.
At this moment she didn't want to think about the future and what it might bring. Right now he lay there drowsily, sated himself with the desire she had aroused. All thought, all feeling had been channelled into her and left her feeling incandescent and yet melting, like the glimmering of mercury on the surface of water.
Even if the rapture was written on water, it had been throbbingly real while it lasted, intensely climactic and gratifying, and Jorja saw Renzo's lips slacken into a smile, as if he were indulging in pleasant thoughts. His arms tightened about her body. 'Rest for a while,' he murmured.
Her lips moved in a smile against his heart, but she didn't know what to say ... how to express in words what he had made her feel.
'You are a little quiet, donna. Are you—all right?'
'I'm fine.' Her cheeks blazed and he surely must have felt their heat, for the meaning in his words was unmistakable.
'Santo Dio, but you were good to take!' His voice was resonant with his sense of satisfaction.
'I—I'm glad.'
'Now you are much more of a woman, eh?'
Her breath caught audibly and he softly laughed. 'This I would say to you in my own language, and more, but you wouldn't understand me. Do I embarrass you, caramella?'
'Just a little,' she confessed, her lips tasting softly the salt on his skin, her nostrils tense and susceptible to his maleness.
'I am glad of that.' He sounded very Italian. 'I like it as much as I liked the sweet lack of shame in your body—ah, don't mind that I say this to you. A man wants a lady in public, but in his bed he wants a woman of flesh and fire. This is a natural need in a man so don't be ashamed.'
'I --' Jorja bit down on the residue of bruising which his kisses had caused. 'I don't want to lose your respect.'
'You are my young wife.' He bent his head and slowly kissed her right breast, then her left one, brushing his mouth over the budlike rosiness into which the peaks had softened. 'Every part of you is pretty, carita. I would like to eat you, as if you were a candy bursting with cognac.'
She laughed, bemused by what they had drifted into. Her fingers took a tremulous journey down his body, shyly exploring him. His chest heaved against her as he caught his breath, and she closed her eyes against his heart and fondled him. Why not? She longed to know his body as he had known hers. Was it wrong of her? Oh no, it couldn't be wrong, for she could hear him breathing deeply in time with her caresses.
Had he lain like this with Angelica? Had she made herself familiar with his body and felt the pleasure humming inside him like the purring of a tiger? In the warm depths of the honeymoon bed Jorja wanted to cast Angelica out of his system ... out of his pliant, tawny body once and for all.
She wanted to be his only source of pleasure ... his hoyden in the privacy of the bedroom.
'So you won't let me relax?' he growled.
'Not on our honeymoon, signore.'
Laughing, tense and taut as a tiger, he took her as they lay and with a powerful movement he pulled her above him. His hands stroked up and down her skin as he held her, his eyes emblazoned with a passion she was eager to share. She was suddenly and sensitively aware that the intensity of their pleasure had caused his leg to ache and he wouldn't admit to it.
Jorja loved him as ardently as he had loved her, until the chords of his neck were stretched by a cry that thrilled her through and through.
She nestled down and kissed his face, his eyes, his throat. His facial bones beneath her lips felt as good to touch as they were to look upon. The pulse in his throat hammered against her mouth. She wondered if she would have his child, his son, who would have the same striking looks.
The sensitised nerves of her stomach rippled at the thought, and she was careful in her movements as she stretched herself beside him. She had noticed all the fine-drawn scarring of his leg, and that rather shocking absence of a kneecap, and she cuddled close to him and heard the sigh of gratification which stole warmly from his lips.
They slept in unison, and when Jorja awoke to the full darkness of the room their bodies were still in contact, they hadn't moved away from each other while they had been lost in sleep. She breathed in the tangy aroma of him, the scent of a passionate male who had been fully satisfied by their mating.
Jorja smiled to herself in the darkness. It had been so earthy and yet so heavenly, the great mystery of life which in her pursuit of duty she had pushed to the very back of her mind. She had been prepared to be a spinster, who read of love between men and women in the books loaned out by the two old sisters who also sold knitting wool and embroidery silks in their village shop.
The vale of Duncton seemed a thousand miles away, yet in terms of reality it wasn't all that far from Sandbourne. The lights of the village could be seen from the rectory, where it stood a little way back from the winding road, down which she wheeled her bicycle in all the changing seasons. Pedalling through the rain, the winds of March, and the balmy air of midsummer.
Life there had been timeless, with little sign of the changes which took place in the cities. She felt attached to the constancy of it all, and had never rebelled because it seemed that her destiny was centred there.
No one could be more amazed than Jorja to find herself sharing the velvety darkness and the warm intimacy of a bed with a man. It seemed like an erotic dream, but every aspect of it was real and potent, and it was Duncton which had taken on a dreamlike quality. Everything seemed insignificant compared to the overwhelming pleasure of sleeping with
Renzo.
She couldn't tell if he was awake. She didn't know if he was thinking of her. She only knew that her life would never be the same again. From now on she would know all about the tyranny of wanting and needing someone, for her body had been very thoroughly tuned in to desire.
Carefully she disengaged herself from Renzo and slid from the bed. She clicked on the rose-shaded lamp because she needed to find the bathroom, and as she left the bedside she picked up her robe from the foot-of-the-bed stool. Strange that she should still feel a little shy of him ... and yet was it so strange?
This side of their relationship still felt so new and unexpected, so that as she showered she couldn't take her eyes from her own slim body, reflected by the wall mirror. Such overwhelming sensations ought to leave some sign, but on the surface she was still the Jorja she had always been.
But as she twisted and turned beneath the water her skin felt a new kind of response, and exquisite feeling ran up and down her body when she brushed her fingertips over the curves which Renzo had kissed and caressed.
As she watched her mirrored self she saw the colour rise to her cheeks and the pupils of her eyes were so expanded that they had collected into them the gleaming whiteness of the bathroom, making them seem incandescent.
Her heart gave a sudden lurch inside her. She looked so much like Angelica ... too much like her sister, making her wonder if it was Angelica's face which Renzo had seen when he embraced her and made such ardent and unrelenting love to her. Was it a fantasy figure who had lit such cascades of desire in his body?
Tears sprang emotionally into Jorja's eyes, spilling with all the new hot feeling she had started to experience. Even if Angelica still plagued the heart out of Renzo, there was no going back to their former relationship. She had given and he had taken and everything was changed between them. Even if there was a little pain, every inch of her was glowing with an awareness of life.
The Honeymoon Page 8